A Helpful Hand With the Tardis
by JosieRose
Summary: The Doctor (number 9), Rose, and Captain Jack stop in a little town for Rose's birthday and need to obtain a little help when the Tardis runs out of power.


"Alright, Rose. Where do you want to go now?"

Rose looked around her thoughtfully. "I've traveled so far, and seen so many things in my time with you. But there is one thing I do miss about back home."

"And what might that be? Your family? You saw them just the other day," Captain Jack Hackness butted in. He always had to get in his two-cents.

"Birthdays. I miss having a birthday party."

The Doctor had that smile on his face. The one that said they were in for a bumpy ride. "Oh, is that all? Well, that's not a hard fix. We can just celebrate your birthday now, no problem. It will be fantastic!" With that, the Tardis began to whir and shake with motion of moving back in time.

Abruptly everything came to a halt. Silence followed. Dead silence. "Where are we now," Rose dared to ask.

Jack stood up on the other side of the console. "An even better question to ask would be 'When are we?'"

The Doctor, as always, was standing at the controls happy as a lark. "We are in the year 2007, the day that our very own Rose Tyler turns 21."

Outside the Tardis, the terrain resembled that of a forest. Rose was in awe of the magnificent size of the trees she found herself surrounded by. Leaning into the Tardis, she called to the Doctor, "So where are we now, then?"

"We are, at the present, in an American national park exactly ten miles from a small town in Arkansas by the name of Clarksville."

"We flying the first class/Up in the sky/Poppin' champagne/Livin' the life/In the fast lane/And I won't change/By the Glamorous, oh the flossy flossy…" The song played on. Rose had never heard this song before, but it was apparently a big hit here in this year. It was by some girl who called herself Fergie, whatever that meant.

They were listening to some modern songs in the Tardis while they waited for Jack to return with some form of transportation into town. The doctor wasn't completely getting the hang of dancing to this song just yet. "Maybe we should take a break," Rose suggested. She felt bad watching his poor attempts at this dance.

"Not at all," the Doctor replied with a smile. "A different song perhaps."

"I've been awake for a while now/You got me feelin' like a child now/'Cause every time I see your bubbly face/I get the tingles in a silly place./It starts in my toes/And I crinkle my nose…"

Rose just smiled and took the Doctor's outstretched hand. This may or may not end well.

Thirteen songs later, Rose and the Doctor were twirling around the Tardis laughing and smiling at each other when Jack returned. "Well, if you two are done dancing like fools, your carriage awaits." Without taking a moment to turn off the Tardis, the couple danced their way outside and to the open bed of the pick-up truck parked not far off.

Six hours later, after the usual festivities of a twenty-first birthday, the spirited and somewhat drunk trio returned to the Tardis, now silent and oddly dark. "Hold on a minute, something's not right here." The Doctor walked back outside the Tardis and then walked in again. Nothing. The lights were down. No noise from inside at all. He rushed to the controls. No amount of pressing buttons or banging on instruments seemed to tell him anymore than the fact that the Tardis was too low on power to do anything. "This is all wrong." His head was beginning to clear a little, but the pictures and words were still a little fuzzy. "What's going on here? This never happened before."

"Maybe you left the lights on when you left." The slurring sputter from Jack seemed to enough to spark the Doctor's memory.

"I did…except it wasn't the lights, it was the music." As the reality began to set in, the Doctor's smile faded. What were they going to do now? Were they stuck here?

"Hey, Doc!" Rose didn't seem completely like herself in her present drunken stupor. "Could we just jump it off the truck?" The Doctor's smile returned in all its splendor.

"Fantastic, Rose! Now why didn't I think of that?"

"Maybe because you're half drunk."

"Well, no one asked you, Captain. Besides you're so drunk, I doubt you could stand up anyway."

The Captain seemed amused. "But I am standing up."

"Are you?" The Doctor turned his head on its side, confused. "I thought you were lying down…or levitating on your side." This last comment sparked a fit of giggles from Rose.

"Alright, Jack. If you can distinguish your foot from your tongue, would you mind stepping on the gas?"

The engine of the truck gave a chug and then rumbled into life. The lights of the Tardis flickered and then went out when the truck splutters and dies. The Doctor, at the consol, slammed the instruments and muttered under his breath. "Can we teleport to the rift?" Rose was acting a little more coherent now, but there was still a little slur in her words.

"No. We're stuck here unless we can find more power."

From off in the distance there came a rumbling through the woods. Suddenly an old truck caked in mud came crashing into the clearing and almost rammed into the Tardis. Wild whoops and hollers could be heard from the cab of the truck. "Hey, Bubba! What's that there box doin' there?" Jason, the younger of the two inhabitants of the truck, was obviously not one of the smartest people on Earth. His older brother, Bubba, didn't seem much smarter.

"Looks like it's stuck in the mud. Hey! Y'all git yer box stuck?"

"Actually," the Doctor trailed off.

"Aw, weell that ain't no problem. We cin git ya out, or jump yer truck." And with that, the two brothers pulled their own set of jumper cables out and hook them up to the Tardis with the Doctor's careful instruction.

At the instruments, the Doctor, Rose, and Jack all breathed a sigh of relief. The Tardis had enough power to reach the rift for charging. The two hick brothers wait outside the Tardis to see if their efforts to help these strangers had paid off.

The Doctor stepped out of the Tardis. "Well, I suppose we should thank you both for your help. We would have been stranded here if it wasn't for you both." They all shook hands and Rose gave them both a hug for their troubles.

As the Tardis faded away, the brothers looked at each other.

"Did ya believe what just happened?"

"Probably one o' them there alien space ships from outer space."

"D'ya think dad'll believe us, Bubba?"

"Nah, let's go tell the rest o' the guys down at the bar, maybe they'll listen."


End file.
